Costume and Jewelry Designer Maggie Schpak Has Died at 80.

Image: Ryan Norbauer / Karen Christians / Roddenberry Entertainment / NASA

She didn’t appear on screen in the Star Trek Universe, but she left her mark all over the franchise and beyond. Costume and jewelry designer Maggie Schpak died June 23 from cancer, as announced by a friend on Facebook. She was 80.

Her career began over fifty years ago, when she thought at first she wanted to act, following the footsteps of her father, Millard Mitchell. She soon realized that she preferred the technical side of things and ended up going into costuming at Western Costume. Her passion, though, would turn out to be metalwork and jewelry. She opened Studio Art Metal Shop with a partner in 1962.

Schpak worked closely with Robert Fletcher on the first three Trek films, producing such items as the Kohlinar necklace from The Motion Picture and Khan’s necklace in The Wrath of Khan. She and her studio would eventually work on all thirteen films and four of the original spinoff series. She even created items in bulk for sale through Roddenberry Entertainment.  

Schpak also created items for such films as Rocky, Rambo, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. She received a Distinguished Service Award from the Costume Designers Guild for 2017.

Schpak was a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, the Sherlock Holmes society, and one of her fellow members (who announced her death) said, “She was kind, generous, smart, funny, and creative to say the least. A better friend could not be had.” Another BSI friend, Monica Schmidt, whom we interviewed recently, said, “I was a very lucky recipient of an emerald tie-pin from a certain gracious lady, and today the world lost a woman who was as kind as she was talented.” And her niece called Schpak “a force of nature, brilliant and thoughtful.”

Please join us in offering our condolences to the friends and family of Maggie Schpak, and to hear Maggie tell her own story, head over to this 2017 interview: